Ezechiele 29:3 Commento

Three chapters we had concerning Tyre and its king; next follow four chapters concerning Egypt and its king. This is the first of them. Egypt had formerly been a house of bondage to God's people; of late they had had but too friendly a correspondence with it, and had depended too much upon it; and therefore, whether the prediction reached Egypt or no, it would be of use to Israel, to take them off from their confidence in their alliance with it. The prophecies against Egypt, which are all laid together in these four chapters, were of five several dates; the first in the 10th year of the captivity (Eze 29:1), the second in the 27th (Eze 29:17), the third in the 11th year and the first month (Eze 30:20), the fourth in the 11th year and the third month (Eze 31:1), the fifth in the 12th year (Eze 32:1), and another in the same year (Eze 29:17). In this chapter we have, I. The destruction of Pharaoh foretold, for his dealing deceitfully with Israel (Eze 29:1-7). II. The desolation of the land of Egypt foretold (Eze 29:8-12). III. A promise of the restoration thereof, in part, after forty years (Eze 29:13-16). IV. The possession that should be given to Nebuchadnezzar of the land of Egypt (Eze 29:17-20). V. A promise of mercy to Israel (Eze 29:21).

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 29 This chapter contains a prophecy against Pharaoh king of Egypt; and of the destruction of the land of Egypt; and of the restoration of it after a certain time. The time of prophecy is noted, Eze 29:1, the order to prophesy against Pharaoh, who is described as a large fish, lying in his rivers, and boasting of them, Eze 29:2, his destruction and the manner of it, Eze 29:4, the reason of it, his treachery to the Jews, Eze 29:6, hence the whole land of Egypt is threatened with desolation, from one end to the other, so as to be uninhabited by man or beast for the space of forty years, Eze 29:8, but shall not arrive to their former glory as a kingdom, nor be any more the confidence of the house of Israel, Eze 29:15, then follows a prophecy seventeen years after this, showing the reason why Egypt was given to the king of Babylon, Eze 29:17, and the chapter is closed with a promise of happiness to Israel, Eze 29:21.

Speak, and say, thus saith the Lord God,.... The one only, living, and true God, the almighty, eternal, and unchangeable Jehovah, which the gods of Egypt were not: behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt; who, though so great a king, was not a match for God, yea, nothing in his hands; nor could he stand before him, or contend with him; or, I am above thee (y); though the king of Egypt was so high above others, and thought so highly of himself, as if he was a god; yet the Lord was higher than he: the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers; the chief river of Egypt was the Nile, which opened in seven mouths or gates into the sea, and out of which canals were made to water the whole land; and which abounding with rivers and watery places, hence the king of it is compared to a great fish, a dragon or whale, or rather a crocodile, which was a fish very common, and almost peculiar to Egypt; and with which the description here agrees, as Bochart observes; and who also remarks that Pharaoh in the Arabic language signifies a crocodile; and to which he may be compared for his cruel, voracious, and mischievous nature; and is here represented as lying at ease, and rolling himself in the enjoyment of his power, riches, and pleasures: which hath said, my river is mine own, and I have made it for myself; alluding to the river Nile, which his predecessors had by their wisdom cut out into canals, for the better watering of the land; and which he might have improved, so that it stood in no need of rain, nor of the supplies of other countries, having a sufficiency from its own product; though he chiefly designs his kingdom, which was his own, and he had established it, and made himself great in it; for the last clause may be rendered, either, "I have made it", as the Syriac version, the river Nile, ascribing that to himself which belonged to God; or, "I have made them", the rivers among whom he lay, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions; or, "I have made myself", as the Vulgate Latin version; that is, a great king. So the Targum, "the kingdom is mine, and I have subdued it.'' Herodotus says of this king, that he was so lifted up with pride, and so secure of his happy state, that he said there was no God could deprive him of his kingdom (z). This proud tyrannical monarch was an emblem of that beast that received his power from the dragon, and who himself spake like one; of the whore of Babylon that sits upon many waters, and boasts of her sovereignty and power, of her wealth and riches, of her ease, peace, pleasure, prosperity, and settled estate, Rev 13:2. (y) "super te", Montanus. (z) Herodot. Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 169. & l. 11. c. 163.

(Verse 3 onwards) Behold, I am coming to you, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, the great dragon, who lies (or sits) in the midst of your rivers, and you say: The river is mine, and I have made it for myself (or them). And I will put a bit (or a snare) in your jaws, and I will stick the fish of your rivers to your scales (or feathers), and I will draw you out of the midst of your rivers; and all your fish will cling to your scales (or feathers). And I will cast (or put) you out swiftly (or into the desert), and all the fish of your river will fall upon the face of the land (or your field). You shall not be gathered together, nor shall you be assembled; I have given you to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air to be devoured. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord; because you have become (or were) a staff (or reed) of the house of Israel, when they took (or he took) you with their hand ((Vulgate is silent on his hand)), and you were broken, and you bruised their every shoulder, and those leaning on you were shattered, and you broke (or shattered) all their loins. We combine both editions of brevity, where they do not differ much from each other. Otherwise, when there is a great difference, we present both. However, it speaks against Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, and under his figure it speaks to great power, to which Egypt is given to govern, and nevertheless it boasts against its Creator, claiming dominion over the land for itself, and entrusting itself to be worshipped by the Egyptian nations. And it speaks according to the location of the province, as if to a king, relying on the flood of the Nile and not greatly desiring rains from the sky, and thinking itself to be the author of itself, or of the rivers, that is, the canals and streams of the Nile made by itself. No, he said, I will not send an Angel, but, O great dragon, who lie and dwell in the middle of your rivers, I myself will come to you for punishment. For you have dared to say: The Nile river is mine, and I am its creator: or, I have made the river by which all Egypt is watered. And when I come, I will put a bridle in your jaws: or I will bind your mouth with reins, with which you boasted so mightily, and I will make all your allies and leaders, whom you call fish, cling to your feathers or scales, so that you are dragged out of the river and thrown out or cast down. For you have exalted yourself excessively in the desert. And you shall fall on the face of the field, or of your land, because Egypt is a flat province. Your body will not be gathered, nor will you be gathered, that is, you will not be buried, but I will give you to be devoured by beasts and birds of the sky, so that when the inhabitants of Egypt see these judgments executed upon you, they may know that I am the Lord. But these things shall happen to you because you have deceived my people Israel with your false aid, so that they would not trust in their God and Creator, but in you. You were a reed staff to them, according to Isaiah (Isa. XXX), or an empty rod, and a very fragile reed, which, when they leaned on it, proved to be useless, so that when they leaned on it, it would break and tear their shoulder, and the hand with which they held on. And while they trusted in you, all the loins of those who fell to the ground would be broken, and those who received help from you would be wounded. But these things are said metaphorically as if to the king of Egypt, because even the province itself was not an adversary to Israel, but while it made great promises, it would separate them from God's help. But according to the anagoge, we often read about the opposing power of the dragon. Therefore, Pharaoh is called the scatterer, because he separates and disconnects from God, and Egypt, that is, Egypt (), is turned into a tribulation and affliction for those whom it can subjugate. This dragon is a transgressor, of whom Job speaks very fully (Job 41). And in the Psalms it is written: You have broken the heads of the dragon, and have given him as food to the people of Ethiopia (Psalm 74:14). And the great dragon is said to be compared to the smaller dragons, of which it is sung in the psalm: You have broken the heads of the dragons in the waters (Ibid.). And in another place: This great and spacious sea with hands. There are reptiles there without number: small animals with large ones, there the ships will pass: This dragon which you have formed to mock him (Ibid., CIII, 25 seqq.). As it is said in another place: He is the king of all that are in the waters, and the beginning of the representation of the Lord, who was made to be mocked by his angels (Job. XLI, 24, sec. LXX). But he sits, or lies down, in the midst of his rivers, not of one river, but of many, which we receive in various heresies, through which he flowed into Egypt of this age, and watered the souls of the deceived, not with rain from heaven, but with turbid waters from the earth, which Jeremiah does not forbid to drink, saying: What to you and the ways of Egypt, that you drink the water of Geon (Jerem. XI, 18) ? For which it is written in Hebrew Sior (), which word is translated into turbid and muddy waters. But so that we may understand what the rivers of the Egyptian dragon are, we will be able to know from their opposites. The Lord speaks of his rivers: Whoever believes in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:37). And to the Samaritan woman: Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life (John 4:13-14). These are the rivers coming from heaven, of which David sings: The stream of the river makes the city of God glad (Psalm 46:4): undoubtedly it signifies the Church. Therefore, let us consider what is the punishment or penalty of the dragon. It follows: And I will put a bit or a noose in your jaws. This is similar to what Job says: You will draw out the dragon with a fishhook, and put a bridle around his nose. He trusts that the Jordan will enter into his mouth; he will receive it in his eye. However, a hook will pierce his nose, and a ring will be in his lips (Job 40:19). The Lord puts a bit in the jaws of this dragon, and pierces his lips and binds them with a ring. This happens when He silences him through Ecclesiastical men who are well-versed in the Holy Scriptures, and all the teachings of wickedness are dissolved. And the fish of its rivers agglutinate with its own wings, or scales, with which the heretics, through pride, hasten to high things, so that they themselves, bound together with the dragon, may become one body with it, and may be united to it either in the fellowship of error, or in the likeness of punishment: just as one who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (I Cor. VI, 17). And indeed, the Egyptian dragon does not have one river, but many rivers, with which it waters humble and lowly Egypt, which has nothing in itself of mountains: nor the waters of Siloam, which flow silently, but turbid and muddy (Isa. VIII). And the Lord will remove him from the midst of his rivers, so that he does not incubate over them, nor sit upon them: and all the fish will adhere to his scales, according to the quality of his vices, throughout the body of the dragon, either to the head, or to the belly, or to the tail, and to the extremities sticking to it: so that when the dragon is removed, the fish also, which adhere to him, be likewise removed. And I will cast you, he says, into the desert, so that you will never find anyone to deceive. Surely, I will cast you down from the summit of your pride, and I will cast you down swiftly, according to the words of the Apostle: 'The God of peace will quickly crush Satan beneath your feet' (Rom. XVI, 20); so that the dragon, broken and cast down, the fish of that river may also be cast down, and the author of crimes may fall, who previously thought he could stand and run throughout the whole world. Let him fall upon the face of his own land, to which he was precipitated from heaven, so that he may no longer be gathered or congregated in the heretical Churches, nor buried among those who believed in him when they have been freed from him, but let him be given over to be devoured by the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky. Regarding the beasts, it is written: 'Do not give the soul confessing to you to the beasts' (Psalm 73:19). And the birds of the sky, which eat the seed along the path, are interpreted to be the devils by the Savior (Matthew 13). For not only the prince of evil, but also his disciples are called devils, according to what is said of Judas: 'Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' (John 6:71). The birds of the sky are called birds because they promise themselves things that are lofty, so that after the dragon with its fish is cast down and handed over to be devoured by the beasts of the earth, which have no gentleness in themselves, and by those who are blown about by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4), then all the inhabitants of this world may understand that he himself is the Lord. But the whole reason for punishments is that Israel sought help in vain, and it was a rod or reed staff, empty and void, having nothing of fullness in itself, because it could not say: But we all received from his fullness (John 1:16); when the Scripture commands: You shall not appear before the Lord your God empty or void (Exodus 23:15). And that we should not seek help from Egypt, Scripture elsewhere testifies: Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help (Isaiah 31:1). He taunts King Hezekiah with a reed staff like this and Rabsaces in vain, saying: Behold, you trust in a reed staff and in this broken staff, over Egypt: on whom if anyone leans, it enters his hand. Thus is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to all who trust in him. And indeed, he lied about the righteous king, mentioning these things, who is interpreted as 'multus poculo'. For he was intoxicated with the golden cup of Babylon, and therefore he fed his own people to the Lord who they confess. But here the pharaoh is reproached because he made the house of Israel to trust in a rod or reed, which promised them vain and fragile help, quickly to be broken. But that we may know what the reed rod is, on which the house of Israel ought not to trust, we may understand from the opposite rod and staff of the Lord, of which it is said to the Lord: Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me (Psalm 23:4). Aaron also had this rod, which devoured the Egyptian serpents, and when he struck the banks of the Nile, mosquitoes were generated in the whole of Egypt (Exodus VII, VIII). Moses also, according to the Septuagint, extended this rod and raised it to the heavens, and the Lord brought a south wind upon the land all that day and all that night, and in the morning the wind lifted locusts and brought them upon all the land of Egypt. I think that this rod is also mentioned in the Book of Numbers, that it blossomed and bore nuts or almonds (Numbers XVII). The Apostle had this when he said: What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod? (I Cor. IV, 21). And those who celebrated the Passover held staffs in their hands, without which they could not support the weakness of the human body and eat the flesh of the lamb. This is the rod from the root of Jesse, upon which the seven spirits rested. But not like Pharaoh, nor like the staff of Egypt and the reed rod that deceives those who grasp it and tears their shoulders, that is, their strength. And whoever leans on it, his loins are loosened and he cannot stand; nor can he celebrate Passover, girded with his loins. This is fitting for those whose hearts and kidneys God examines.

This and the three following chapters foretell the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, which he accomplished in the twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's captivity. The same event is foretold by Jeremiah, Jer 46:13, etc. The prophecy opens with God's charging the king of Egypt (Pharaoh-hophra) with the same extravagant pride and profanity which were in the preceding chapter laid to the charge of the prince of Tyre. He appears, like him, to have affected Divine honors; and boasted so much of the strength of his kingdom, that, as an ancient historian (Herodotus) tells us, he impiously declared that God himself could not dispossess him. Wherefore the prophet, with great majesty, addresses him under the image of one of those crocodiles or monsters which inhabited that river, of whose riches and revenue he vaunted; and assures him that, with as much ease as a fisherman drags the fish he has hooked, God would drag him and his people into captivity, and that their carcasses should fall a prey to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of heaven, Eze 29:1-7. The figure is then dropped; and God is introduced denouncing, in plain terns, the most awful judgments against him and his nation, and declaring that the Egyptians should be subjected to the Babylonians till the fall of the Chaldean empire, Eze 29:8-12. The prophet then foretells that Egypt, which was about to be devastated by the Babylonians, and many of the people carried into captivity, should again become a kingdom; but that it should never regain its ancient political importance; for, in the lapse of time, it should be even the Basest of the kingdoms, a circumstance in the prophecy most literally fulfilled, especially under the Christian dispensation, in its government by the Mameluke slaves, Eze 29:13-16. The prophecy, beginning at the seventeenth verse, is connected with the foregoing, as it relates to the same subject, though delivered about seventeen years later. Nebuchadnezzar and his army, after the long siege of Tyre, which made every head bald by constantly wearing their helmets, and wore the skin of off every shoulder by carrying burdens to raise the fortifications, were disappointed of the spoil which they expected, by the retiring of the inhabitants to Carthage. God, therefore, promises him Egypt for his reward, Eze 29:17-20. The chapter concludes with a prediction of the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, Eze 29:21.

The great dragon - התנים hattannim should here be translated crocodile, as that is a real animal, and numerous in the Nile; whereas the dragon is wholly fabulous. The original signifies any large animal. The midst of his rivers - This refers to the several branches of the Nile, by which this river empties itself into the Mediterranean. The ancients termed them septem ostia Nili, "the seven mouths of the Nile." The crocodile was the emblem of Egypt.

THE JUDGMENT ON EGYPT BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR; THOUGH ABOUT TO BE RESTORED AFTER FORTY YEARS, IT WAS STILL TO BE IN A STATE OF DEGRADATION. (Eze. 29:1-21) Pharaoh--a common name of all the kings of Egypt, meaning "the sun"; or, as others say, a "crocodile," which was worshipped in parts of Egypt (compare Eze 29:3). Hophra or Apries was on the throne at this time. His reign began prosperously. He took Gaza (Jer 47:1) and Zidon and made himself master of Phœnicia and Palestine, recovering much that was lost to Egypt by the victory of Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish (Kg2 24:7; Jer 46:2), in the fourth year of Jehoiakim [WILKINSON, Ancient Egypt, 1.169]. So proudly secure because of his successes for twenty-five years did he feel, that he said not even a god could deprive him of his kingdom [HERODOTUS, 2.169]. Hence the appropriateness of the description of him in Eze 29:3. No mere human sagacity could have enabled Ezekiel to foresee Egypt's downfall in the height of its prosperity. There are four divisions of these prophecies; the first in the tenth year of Ezekiel's captivity; the last in the twelfth. Between the first and second comes one of much later date, not having been given till the twenty-seventh year (Eze 29:17; Eze 30:19), but placed there as appropriate to the subject matter. Pharaoh-hophra, or Apries, was dethroned and strangled, and Amasis substituted as king, by Nebuchadnezzar (compare Jer 44:30). The Egyptian priests, from national vanity, made no mention to HERODOTUS of the Egyptian loss of territory in Syria through Nebuchadnezzar, of which JOSEPHUS tells us, but attributed the change in the succession from Apries to Amasis solely to the Egyptian soldiery. The civil war between the two rivals no doubt lasted several years, affording an opportunity to Nebuchadnezzar of interfering and of elevating the usurper Amasis, on condition of his becoming tributary to Babylon [WILKINSON]. Compare Jer 43:10-12, and see on Jer 43:13, for another view of the grounds of interference of Nebuchadnezzar.

dragon--Hebrew, tanim, any large aquatic animal, here the crocodile, which on Roman coins is the emblem of Egypt. lieth--restest proudly secure. his rivers--the mouths, branches, and canals of the Nile, to which Egypt owed its fertility.